


Surprise

by talefeathers



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Misunderstandings, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12088656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: Julia is upset when her father's apprentice starts to ignore her. That is, until she finally finds out why.





	Surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witticaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witticaster/gifts).



> Prompts: Julia/Magnus + Confess from @thestatuspoe, Julia/Magnus + Surprise from @paladinical (witticaster on AO3)

If you had asked Julia before now if she cared whether her father’s apprentice paid her any mind, the answer would have been a definitive “No.”

It wasn’t that she disliked him; in fact, he was one of very few boys she knew who was kind to her for no other reason than to be kind, and she loved that he could be funny without needing to be rude. No, it wasn’t that she disliked him; she just didn’t like to think of herself as dependent on the attention of any boy, even a perfectly decent one. 

When it started to seem like he was actively avoiding her, however, she began to realize that she might not be so cavalier about Magnus Burnsides’s attention (or lack thereof) after all.

He was coming into the shop at odd hours – hours when Julia had chores and errands that took her to other columns. This hadn’t bothered her much at first. It was when she would return a little earlier than usual, or when she had to turn back for something she’d forgotten, and Magnus would scramble to collect his things and stumble back to his quarters, that her ego began to sting.

After two days of this, she agonized over what she must have done to lose the favor of a boy who seemed to like everyone. A day after that, her mood weather-vaned and she resolved never to speak to him again. If he wanted to cold-shoulder her like this when she had clearly done nothing to provoke it, well, two could play at that game, couldn’t they?

It wasn’t until the fifth day, as she walked past his work station with her nose turned up, that he stopped her.

“Hey, um. Are you okay?” Magnus asked, his eyes infuriatingly gentle.

What Julia’s brain said was “Okay, just be cool. Brush him off. He’s not worth it.”

What her mouth said, much too loudly, was “What do _you_ care?”

Confusion flickered across Magnus’s face.

“What?”

“Oh, please,” Julia scoffed. “This is the first you’ve spoken to me in days! Clearly it’s small potatoes to you whether I’m okay or not!”

Magnus’s eyes widened. Then blood rushed into his cheeks.

“Oh – I didn’t – I mean, crud, I wasn’t –”

He snapped his mouth shut, then, as if to stem the flow of stutters, and thrust something into her hands instead.

“What the – what is this?” Julia sputtered, brandishing the small wooden box in his face.

“Open it.”

Julia scrunched her whole face into a squint, trying to read Magnus’s intent on his face. Eventually, she moved her squint down to the box he had given her. 

She opened it.

Inside was a beautiful, well-made tulipwood bangle, etched with an intricate floral design. She couldn’t help a small gasp at the sight of it, so lovely was the woodwork.

“I’m sorry for ignoring you,” Magnus said. “In retrospect, that was pretty dumb. I just didn’t want to spoil the surprise. And the surprise is, I guess.”

Julia looked up from the bangle to see that Magnus’s face had, somehow, turned an even deeper shade of red.

“I love you,” he said.

Julia opened her mouth, but couldn’t seem to remember how to make words come out of it. This was too much, and the opposite of what she had prepared for, and she was still so mad, but he was so – so –

So _cute?_

Magnus chuckled nervously.

“If you need a minute, I can –”

“No, you – you stay right the fuck there,” Julia blurted. 

She took a deep breath.

“You love me,” she said.

“I do,” Magnus replied.

Julia nodded, as if this made any more sense to her than it had before. It didn’t.

She looked back down at the bangle, at the obvious care with which it had been carved. The same care, she realized, that he had treated her with since the moment he’d met her.

“Okay,” she breathed. “Okay.”

She met his eyes again – those big, earnest browns. She watched them for a moment. Then she smiled.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I love you, too.”


End file.
